Two visual perspectives from which memories can be retrieved have been described in the literature (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Memories from the first person perspective are experienced as if seeing the ... [more ▼]

Two visual perspectives from which memories can be retrieved have been described in the literature (Nigro & Neisser, 1983). Memories from the first person perspective are experienced as if seeing the events again through one’s own eyes whereas third person perspective (or observer perspective) is the one of an external observer watching the scene. Cultural differences in the use of those memory points of view have been evidenced, but what they depend on exactly is still uncertain. One way to characterize culture is through their levels of independent and interdependent self-construals, that is how much people from a given culture define themselves as independent from or dependent on others. The present experiment aimed at examining the impact of independent and interdependent self-construals on memory perspective. In order to do so, the impact of a self-construal priming task on the vantage point used to retrieve a memory was investigated. Participants were either assigned to an independent self-construal priming condition, to an interdependent self-construal priming condition or to a control condition. The visual perspective from which they retrieved a memory for their first day at university was then measured using a Likert scale. Finally, an analytic and holistic letter perception task was used in order to objectivize the priming task’s efficiency. Results showed that participants who underwent an independent self-construal priming tended to retrieve their memory from a more external perspective than participants from the interdependent self-construal priming group. Priming also significantly influenced performance at the letter perception task. These results are consistent with those obtained by Cohen and Gunz (2002). In the present study, the results suggest that participants primed with independence retrieved memories in which they “see” themselves, therefore using a more external point of view at recall. The opposite would have occurred for the participants primed with interdependence, who supposedly retrieved memories in which they see others, thus leading to a more personal perspective in memory. Cohen, D., & Gunz, A. (2002). As seen by the other…: Perspectives on the self in the memories and emotional perceptions of easterners and westerners. Psychological Science, 13, 55-59. Nigro, G., & Neisser, U. (1983). Point of view in personal memories. Cognitive Psychology, 15, 467-482. [less ▲]

Previous studies have investigated the effect of ageing on age estimation from faces as well as the occur- rence of an own-age bias in such age estimation from faces. To the best of our knowledge, the ... [more ▼]

Previous studies have investigated the effect of ageing on age estimation from faces as well as the occur- rence of an own-age bias in such age estimation from faces. To the best of our knowledge, the occurrence of an own age effect on age estimation from voices has never been examined earlier using an experimental design in which the age of participants (young vs. old) and the age of voice stimuli (young vs. old) were crossed. Results revealed an own-age bias in older adults only. In comparison with younger adults, older participants showed age estimation abilities that are preserved for voices from their own age group and impaired for younger voices. This own age bias was absent in younger participants. [less ▲]

Although studies on age estimation showed that the performance of estimation is fairly accurate, this performance can be influenced by group biases such as the own-age bias (George & Hole, 1995). Moreover ... [more ▼]

Although studies on age estimation showed that the performance of estimation is fairly accurate, this performance can be influenced by group biases such as the own-age bias (George & Hole, 1995). Moreover this bias occurs both in young and older adults (Moyse & Brédart, 2012). Because difficulties in face processing have been reported in Alzheimer disease (Della Sala et al., 1995), the aim of this study was to examine the performance of age estimation from faces in patients with Alzheimer disease (mild to moderate) compared with normal aging persons. Moreover to test the preservation of the occurrence of an own-age bias, stimuli belonging to different age groups (young, middle age and older adults) were used. We observed a main effect of Group indicating that patients were less accurate than control whatever the age of faces. In addition a main effect of Age of faces was obtained; the percentage of accuracy was better for older faces than for the two other age groups of faces. Consequently although patients’ performance in age estimation of faces is impaired, an own-age bias was still present. These results have two main interests: a clinical interest (expanding the diagnostic criteria of the Alzheimer disease) and a forensic interest (assessing the credibility of eyewitness testimony in older adults with a possible Alzheimer disease). [less ▲]

Although the link between emotion and memory has been demonstrated for long, only one study has examined the impact of emotion on inadvertent plagiarism (cryptomnesia) up to now (Gingerich & Dodson, 2012 ... [more ▼]

Although the link between emotion and memory has been demonstrated for long, only one study has examined the impact of emotion on inadvertent plagiarism (cryptomnesia) up to now (Gingerich & Dodson, 2012). The Gingerich and Dodson‘s experiment examined the impact of mood on unintentional plagiarism. The present study examined the effect of emotional content of items on the occurrence of unintentional plagiarism using the Brown and Murphy paradigm (1989). In a first stage, same-sex dyads (96 participants, 48 men, mean age=21.5 years) were asked to generate alternately words corresponding to an emotional category. Three categories were proposed to our participants: positive, neutral and negative. Participants returned after a one week-delay and were instructed (1) to recall the items generated by themselves one week earlier (RO task), (2) to generate four new items for each category (GN task), and (3) to assign a confidence rating. In the RO task, almost 17% of responses were plagiarisms and the percentage almost reached 9% in the GN task. In the RO task, plagiarism was significantly higher for positive than neutral items. In addition, positive and negative items were better recalled than neutral one. These results demonstrate an impact of the emotional content on inadvertent plagiarism. [less ▲]

This study examined the impact of the emotional content on rates of cryptomnesia using the Brown and Murphy (1989) paradigm. In a first stage, dyads of young (mean age = 21.5 years) participants (n = 96 ... [more ▼]

This study examined the impact of the emotional content on rates of cryptomnesia using the Brown and Murphy (1989) paradigm. In a first stage, dyads of young (mean age = 21.5 years) participants (n = 96, 48 females) were asked to generate alternately words corresponding to an emotional category (i.e.,“positive”, “negative” or “neutral”). One week later, participants were instructed (1) to recall the items that were generated by themselves and not by the other member of the dyad (Recall-Own task), (2) to generate four news items (Generate-New task) for each category and (3) to assign confidence ratings to their responses. About 17% of responses were plagiarisms in the recall-own task and the percentage almost reached 9% in the Generate-New task. No significant effects of valence were found on rates of plagiarism in Generate-New task nor on the confidence ratings assigned to the participants' responses. However, cryptomnesia was significantly higher for positive than neutral items while it did not differ significantly across negative and neutral items. Confidence ratings were lower for plagiarized responses than for correct responses but these ratings were higher for plagiarized items than for intrusions. [less ▲]

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined ... [more ▼]

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined event have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ – Johnson et al., 1988): target memory (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon. [less ▲]